The Words Left Behind
by Artemis Selene
Summary: After Ella dies, Mandy comes across her unsent letters to Char. What she chooses to do with them will hopefully vindicate her goddaughter's memory. Companion to One Last Choice.
1. Unsent Letters

Mandy places Ella's few possessions--a pair of glass slippers, a magic book, an elven-made cup, two drab, tattered servant's dresses and numerous letters--in a small box. She brushes back a stream of tears from her cheeks. It has been over a week, yet the image of Ella collapsed on the kitchen floor, the knife protruding from her breast as a pool of blood collects around her lifeless body is seared in Mandy's memory as if it had happened moments ago.

As much as it grieves her, she understands it. Ever since that last ball, Ella had been empty. She neither laughed nor cried, never retold her favorite stories nor customary small defiances. She mutely accepted any order given to her and went about her daily tasks with indifference. In truth, there was nothing left of the clever, spirited lass Mandy knew as her godchild. In her place was a gaunt, emaciated figure who's glazed eyes seemed to register no emotion at all. It was only when Mandy looked at Ella's lifeless face, arranged in that defiant smile, that she recognized something of the girl's former spirit. Mandy thought Ella had given up trying to resist her gift; she was wrong, she realizes. Ella's very death was her resistance.

Mandy glances at the pile of letters she has just placed at the top of the box. Many are in Ella's handwriting, some written by another person. She wonders if Ella had been corresponding with someone before her death; perhaps there is someone else besides herself who still cares for Ella . She pulls a letter from the pile, one without Ella's writing and examines it. The date is nearly a year past and the penmanship belongs to Prince Charmont. These letters Ella concealed under the flat pallet are from her past correspondence with the Prince. Disappointed, but still curious Mandy reaches toward the pile again, this time for a letter in Ella's hand. Despite being addressed to the Prince, it has never been sent. Nor have any of the others bearing Ella's penmanship, she notes with some sadness after perusing them all. The last dates back more than four months ago, before the first of the three balls, before Ella lost all hope of ever overcoming her curse and became a shadow of her former, vibrant self. Mandy realizes that what Ella never said to her friend, she wrote in unsent letters.

Indeed, there is much that has gone unsaid despite thorough confessions on paper. Mandy was constantly aware of the dangers Lucinda's magic presented for Ella, but she rarely considered whether or not someone else would share those dangers by association. But Ella had, and she sacrificed her own happiness to ensure it would never happen. She couldn't tell the young man who wanted to marry her why she must refuse him. He would never understand that she exchanged his love for his hatred because she valued him (and the people he would one day have to protect) too much to accept it. In these letters though, Ella allowed him to understand everything, to share the most minute details of her life. In these letters, she made no attempt to hide her curse, did not shy away from telling him how much she loved him. None of it matters in the end, though.

No one but Mandy herself seems to care that Ella is dead. By the time another maid had noticed the poor dear lass's body in the corner, it had been a cold corpse for hours. Although Sir Peter was informed of his only child's passing, he did not even send a reply acknowledging the message. Dame Olga merely ordered the body to be "disposed of promptly." Only Mandy was there to witness Ella's coffin lowered into its grave beside Lady Eleanor's. Only Mandy seemed to regret the death of this kind, intelligent, courageous lady who attempted to live a life already defined by a foolish fairy's fantasies, yet ultimately lost herself through the sacrifices it demanded.

Mandy looks down again at the letters she is holding. They are all the remain of Ella now--the spirited, compassionate Ella she loved and lost. Ironic, that the person they were meant for will has no notion of how much she truly valued him.


	2. Mandy's Message

_Dear Prince Charmont,_

_I am writing to inform you of the death of Ella, daughter of Sir Peter of Frell. I realize that perhaps her welfare is currently of little consequence to you. If I am not mistaken, your last piece of news of Ella led you to believe she had eloped with a wealthy older gentleman; you were told that she never returned your feelings, but only sough some social advantage through association with you. Such a story was false; however, the falsehood is not of Ella's stepsister Hattie's doing (as you are are probably thinking upon reading this). Ella herself was responsible for it. She forged the letter in Hattie's writing and attached her own note to collaborate it. Why she did this I will not tell you here, for I feel that it is something best realized by yourself. Enclosed is a packet of letters Ella addressed to you after your correspondence with her ended. She was never able to send them during her lifetime. Now, however, it seems appropriate that you should have them. _

_Sincerely,_

_Mandy_


	3. As if you're reading it anyway

**Again, I own nothing-it's all Gail Carson Levine's. Apologies for the ridiculously long delay between updates. **

Char reads the letter over again. And again after that.

Dead. Ella is dead.

A few short months ago he didn't just wish her dead, but suffering an eternal anguish akin to the pain and humiliation that her odious, duplicitous treatment of him brought. In his weaker moments, however, part of him, the part that was still in love with a kind, funny, unpretentious girl, wondered if she was happy, if she had discovered some lovely new stair rail to slide down on. Part of him still held onto the girl he thought she had been.

But gradually he managed surpress most memories of Ella. She played him false, broken his heart, and all he could do, he reasoned, was put it behind him and move on. What sort of king would he make if he could not endure a tomato thrown at him, even if it came from someone he thought he loved? She was gone from his life, and that was how it should be.

The letter in his hand declares otherwise now. She is dead. She was not who he resigned himself to accept her as.

A litany of questions fills his head now, each attempting to reconcile the paper in his hand with the feelings he has worked so hard to ignore. How did she die? Why did she forge the letter in Hattie's hand? What made her want him to hate her?

He glances at the thick packet of letters. He has not yet had a chance to examine them. Mandy claims it is appropriate he should have them now that Ella is no longer alive; they were specifically addressed to him, though she never sent them. He picks them up. Some are in his own handwriting; he realizes they're the ones he wrote to her during his first six months in Ayortha. Most are in the spiky, hasty handwriting that once made his heart lurch with joy. He takes the first letter from the packet of Ella's writing and reads:

Dear Char,

I am cursed. A fool of a fairy called Lucinda gave me the "gift" of obedience at birth. She meant it as a blessing, but it is most surely a curse. One simple command, and I would have to stand on one leg for a day, cut off my own head, walk into a frying pan and eaten by ogres. I can't tell anyone this-as a child Mother ordered me to never to do so after I punched the maid's daughter for ordering me about when I shared my fairy curse with her. If I were given the chance to resist a single command, to break just one order given to me, this would be the one. Then I would tell you everything: how much I love you, how precious you are, why marrying you is impossible no matter how much I want to shout "Yes!" loud enough for all of Frell to hear and share my joy.

I would also write the truth of my existence here in Mum Olga's household. She may have nearly suffocated me with joy at the prospect of acquiring a new daughter, but the euphoria promptly wore off with the news that Father was no longer rich. The moment he went off trading again, Mum Olga gave me new quarters in the servants' wing and the position of kitchen scullery maid. Hattie, for all her thickness, worked the curse out for herself and told Olive and Mum Olga. So here I am, trapped, more slave than servant. Mandy watches over me best she can, but my step-family takes perverse pleasure in ordering me about. You, though, are hundreds of miles away, and I never wanted you to know my troubles. Also, I suppose the curse makes it difficult to explain forced servitude.

I love you. You will never see this letter, or anything else I write, but it comforts me to tell the truth here as if you're reading it anyway.

Your Loving Friend,

Ella

Anger and guilt wash over Char as he reads he final sentence. Never has he felt so terrible. Ella spent her life cursed with obedience, worked as a servant in her own home and sacrificed her own happiness for the his and Kyrria, and he repaid her with hatred! Why was he so blind, so foolish not to realize "Hattie's" letter was exactly what he initially suspected it to be-a lie? He thinks back to that painful moment when he read Ella's enclosed note. Oh, it resembled her cheerful, witty tone enough to stoke his wounded pride. But had he truly bothered to ask why she acted so out-of-character, he could've learned the truth before Ella died. Instead of calling her all manner of insults then attempting to forget her, he could've helped her escape her step-family, or find the fairy who gave her the curse, or any manner of things!

Warm tears trickle down his face, but Char doesn't bother to wipe them. In some way he blames himself. It is silly, of course, perhaps event conceited, to think he could've prevented Ella's early death. He doesn't even know the cause of it. But he has no way to make things right, no way of begging her forgiveness. It should not have been so easy for her to earn his hatred, not when she proves more noble and selfless than he, Kyrria's future king, should be.

Char stares at the remaining letters. She loved him. And despite all his efforts to forget her, he has never stopped loving her.

Before he can begin the next letter, a knock at the door interrupts his anguished thoughts.

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